My Favorite (Free) New Fonts
My Favorite New Free Fonts
As part of what I do — particularly product creation, Web site design, usability work, content creation and copywriting — I am always on the look for new designs, good ideas and new fonts.
Since I am during “Copy Cosmetics” week on my blogs (see the first post “Copy Cosmetics, the Secret to Improved Conversions“) I thought it would be a great time to let you know my favorites of the new free fonts I’ve found this year (so far!)
They are a combination of newly created fonts and some that have been around for a few years that I don’t remember ever seeing before.
Plus there is one font that I “rediscovered” and forgot how much I like.
So, without further talk, here’s and alphabetic list of my “so far” list and, yes, these are all free for personal and commercial use…
Standard or Classic Fonts
Alegreya was chosen as one of 53 “Fonts of the Decade” at the ATypI Letter2 competition in September 2011.
While Alegreya, another serif font (what’s wrong with me 
was originally intended for literature it conveys a rhythm that makes reading a long Web page easier (although I still think sans serif fonts are better for Web pages sometimes a serif font has it’s place and this would be a good choice)
This is a thin serif font but the serifs are both bolder and subtler depending upon the individual character itself which gives the font an interesting look.
Great Vibes is a beautiful flowing (connected) script font with looping ascenders and descenders as well nice uppercase letters, something that some script fonts have problems with.
It’s great for fancy formal things like weddings invitations, graduation announcements, etc.
This (sans serif) font is a bold, thick, geometric font (notice the circular circles and sharp triangles).
Similar to Futura, Intro has sharper edges and rounder curves; even when bold.
Intro comes in both a regular font (shown to the right) and one with an embedded line in the center of each character which you can view here.
Jura is a elegant serif typeface of narrow proportions with distinguishing details.
This is a rounded, wedge shaped serif font and it give off a more contemporary feel than many serif fonts (which is one reason I like this one so much even though I am partial to sans serif fonts); one great thing about this found it still is readable at small sizes.
It includes four fonts — Regular; Italic; Bold & Bold-Italic — and each variant includes 241 characters.
This is my favorite rediscovered font.
I don’t know why I stopped using it or even forgot about it but when I saw it I remember how much I like it.
I think part of that is because it a sans serif font with a design that has a sort of flare at the ends which gives it a hint of a serif about to bloom.
This is particularly apparent on characters with long straight lines like a P, T, L, etc.
A clean hand-drawn font that’s more a printed Scribbles-type font than a script font.
A classy “loopy and swoopy” script font, it would look right at home on the U.S. Declaration of Independence!
This could also be used where a more formal font with a “flourish” is desired.
An interesting light/thin font that is more suitable to designs than blocks of text (particularly since it’s missing some characters).
So if you’re planning to use it then header graphics, logos, stationary, etc. are more appropriate.
Interesting, Playful and Fun Fonts
This is a handmade graffiti style font that is available in black & white as well as colored versions; well it’s not really a font like you normally think of as fonts, you’ll see what I mean.
It’s quite well done and very colorful but useful in only circumstances.
It only comes in very large (2,500 by 2,500) individual characters (letters, numbers and a few punctuation marks) that you would need to manually put together to form words, similar to how people set type when they actually set type.
You can just install this like a normal font and start typing on your keywords!
An excellent children’s writing style “hand printed” font with all the main characters and some fun dingbats as well.
Great anytime you want to simulate an earlier elementary school children writing.
This is a font that is meant to look like the Peterbilt (trucks) logo.
A good font to use in niches like trucking, auto parts, etc.
This is a font that simulates the look of a “stamp”, the jumbled version has the characters with different baselines and angled at slightly different angles from the normal vertical up and down.
And those are my favorite new fonts (so far
What do you think? Tell me what your favorite fonts are in the comments below.
